You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.

A portal leading to the busy NetVegas network shone blue, indicating arrival of a new visitor. Data packets began to rise from the blue teleporter, congealing into a form. After a very short while, the form became solid, and Eternalis.EXE rolled onto the ground after his leap into the portal's other side. Standing up, he looked around and waited for his busting partner to come along as well. Meanwhile, he contemplated his earlier stunt.

Wow, I actually stuck the landing that time.

That Rhea girl seemed interesting.

Surprised at the unexpected voice, he looked around before realizing it was Aurora, still inhabiting his gauntlets. He'd totally forgotten about his SP. Uh, yeah, she was. Why didn't you say anything, Aurora? I could've introduced you.

I still can't materialize in the Netspace for some reason. Probably that Cragger blow was a bit too hard on my systems. I'll need some time to rest. Till then, expect me to be as quiet as a mouse, okay? she said.

Hm. Alright, then. Have a good rest, Eternalis replied, patting the gauntlets as their glow receded slowly into nothing.

Packets of data spurted like a fountain from the portal, sending a tumbling figure out of the portal to roll for a few feet before skidding to a stop, Rhea.EXE standing up from the cloud of dust that marked her arrival. This would be the first time Rhea enterred NetVegas, without Camillia no doubt. On that note, the swords-based Navi proceeded to leave a message to her Operator, prompting her to provide support when she was awake. ... She would do fine nonetheless, Rhea thought confidently.

Eternalis and Rhea trekked across the marvelous NetVegas, constantly being shined down by the flashy advertisements and signs. They had a good time, despite the fact that they were suppose to be here in order to fight.

*ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMM!!*

Above the two navis were three stripes of colored smoke created by three flying objects and a small firework. It was a spectacular view...but it would've been even better if they had the time to enjoy it! Little did they know, all of this was created by a virus, who was now heading towards Eternalis and Rhea!

Eternalis was just about to comment on Rhea's mode of entry when they spotted the pretty display. Hey, nice rol- Oooh, fireworks. That's new. He hadn't really seen spectacles like this in other networks. Though, really, other networks he'd just come to bust or something and leave. This place was packed with shiny bleepy things that flared out at you like an incessant Metool's helmet shine. Then, he noticed something rather strange about the flying planes that were emitting the smoke display that accompanied the fireworks. His eyes squinted, vision focused, until they widened once again, as he understood what they really were. Fishy. No mistake about it, that green thing with its spiky body that flew around... He remembered it from his first encounter at Beach. Then, he looked down, and saw that it was not un-accompanied. Some round tank-like viruses were also rolling their way... Looks like it's time for a battle routine, he said, mostly to himself.

He was about to open the communication link with Harke, when he remembered Reverus' earlier message. His face scrunched itself up as he realized that he wasn't going to get any strategy advice any time soon. Instead, he was going to have to rely on his own skills, with some help from his companion. He switched to the direct link option, sending the PET his chip choices. In the meantime... Rhea, I'll handle the viruses for now, but I'll need backup fire. If you get hit or anything, I'll redirect my recovery processes to nurse your wounds. Just, er, give me a signal or something, all right? By then, he'd felt Reverus slot in the chips he'd needed wordlessly. Having not opened the comms link, he didn't know what his operator's father was up to, but he trusted the man.

The aquatic Navi prepared his defense process before activating his vapor transport process. The glow of the blue barrier lit up his body as he began to shift into steam. His fists were clenched as his face turned into a determined battle-ready expression. Then, he shot off into the air, leaving behind a plume of superheated water particles in his wake. Unlike his previous uses with the technique, however, Eternalis did not phase through his enemies to backstab them. Instead, he halted his swift journey smack in front of the Fishy and recollected himself. Scaring the Fishy instead of surprising them from behind, he hoped, would stall the Fishy from attacking as he readied two chips in his hands.

The ocean motif on the Crystal Gauntlets shone with two different lights, the right a dull grey tone, and the left a bright blue hue. Wideshot, he whispered. And his left hand came alive, a circle of water gathered from seemingly out of nowhere and coated his fist with an amorphous blob of sorts. He waved it at the Fishy, full 180 degrees, and the water turned into a thin, piercing wave that seemed to hover in the air for a moment before flying in the Fishy's direction.

Then, he followed with another whisper, Windracket, as his right hand also mimicked its partner, rough winds encircling the gauntlet in a silent gale. It picked up some debris from the floor before Eternalis swung the hand at the Fishy as well, commanding the winds to cut through the air. They immediately complied, hurling themselves at high speeds to bash themselves against the virus' body with great force, so much as to hurl them backwards and send them reeling into a daze. The right gauntlet then dimmed its grey light, having done its job.

But he wasn't done yet. His left gauntlet was still very much alive, and it was gathering even more strength as he waited. He clenched his fist as the energies concentrated themselves on the very tip of his knuckles, making him seem like he had whitened knuckles. Then, he whispered, Waterline, before opening up the fist and slamming his open palm into the ground. The attack sent the energies hurtling freely into the ground towards his intended targets, traveling as a carefree shockwave of gleaming blue energy heading straight for the Kabutank force.

Rhea looked up at the sky, alarmed at the sight of smoke clouds and fireworks-- knowing that it was merely a distraction in this virus-infested realm, she let her visual bring her back to ground level to greet the virii practically charging at their way. Rhea silently nodded to Eternalis's instructions, knowing that she was alone now-- no chip support, no healing, nothing. In her arsenal was only her buster, and her own moves. ...What can she do with only these processes?

Seeing Eternalis get into action, however, sent the petite Navi into action, as well. Her arm immediately shifting into a bundle of rope-like appendage, Rhea's sharp gaze followed the target that her partner was aiming at, and threw the draining whip at the target Fishy's direction. The whip seemed to obtain a life on it's own, snaking in a slithering fashion to coil around any moving virii it's master had targetted for. However, Rhea did not detach the whip at all-- in fact, she used it like a giant rope, using any object that was caught in the tightened grip of the whip as momentum to swing it at the next virii she could see.

Once done, Rhea threw away the rope at last, sprinting towards the nearest of the Kabutanks, her face sending the message to kill clearly across the battlefield to her target. Dangerously brandishing her buster-- her signature sword-arm blade generator-- she spun and glided the blade in a dangerous-looking stroke at the enemy, making sure she only grazed at the virii.

She threw in a confused look afterwards for the show to be all the more convincing. But it was only then she realized that she hadn't had any chips to use, considering she was unoperated. Rhea visibly frowned and froze there for a moment, debating with herself on what to do with the extra power obtained from the attack seconds earlier-- and decided to keep it in her storage processes-- a choice visibly marking Rhea as a still fresh greenhorn in battle.

Rhea didn't know, however, what fate had in store for her at the time she froze there.

Eternalis tried to psych out the Fishies with his teleport, which mostly worked as it gave him a brief opportunity to attack with a Wideshot. The front-runner of the group took the brunt of the attack and managed to survive, but was pulled away and deleted by Rhea's Harvest tether. The other two Fishies were blown away by a wave of wind and also deleted in a flash.

Rhea kept one of the Kabutanks occupied with her fake out attack while the remaining two were swallowed up by Eternalis's Waterline. The weakened Kabutank attacked Eternalis by lobbing a bomb but his barrier shrugged it off. The normal panels glowed brightly before reconfiguring themselves into a set of shiny metallic plates.

Scanning the battlefield, Eternalis found that the only one virus remaining was a lonely little Kabutank. Easy pickings, he thought, as he obtained another chip from Reverus, which was duly delivered through the direct link his operator's father had set up. Activating the chip, he balled his hands into fists once again and directed the chip flow into them, turning them into fiery fists of rage. He turned to Rhea, and began to pep-talk her.

You can take this one, Rhea. I'll be right here for standby! Focus on the virus!

He was itching to delete the virus, and he could, but he didn't want to steal any kills. That would be wrong.

Rhea watched the spectacle, inwardly sighing at the sight of the destruction about. It would take a long time for her to reach Eternalis' level of fighting capability, she was sure of that. When showered by her busting partners' cheers, Rhea just raised an eyebrow, unable to comprehend the purpose of such an act. He could have efficiently erased all the viruses... She wondered why?

Taking the golden opportunity when the Kabutank was not paying attention to her, however, Rhea sprung at the enemy-- her confidence suddenly back on her face at last. Right hand outstretched, the swords-based Navi welcomed the familiar tingling of data transmitted from a familiar source, brandishing a materializing sword almost half her full height. The strengthening processes seemed to do it's work, as well-- hungrily integrating itself with the new chip data.

It was one mean sword, alright.

"How was sleep? Rhea inquired out of courtesy. "A nap, however, should last longer than this." Camillia laughed, a sleepy yawn following after. "Hey, girl, I heard this loud commotion coming from the PET and was wondering what was up, and it's juuuuuuust as I expected," the operator grinned, which Rhea just pulled an embarrassed face to before proceeding to swing the blade in a diagonal arc at the Kabutank before her-- before throwing another slash for good measure.

Eternalis watched from the sidelines and allowed his partner to deliver the finishing blow while restraining himself. Rhea was quick to move in and bisected the virus diagonally in an overpowering swipe. Even the bomb in its barrel was cut perfectly in half, effectively disarming it. With the viral forces wiped out, appropriate awards were distributed accordingly. In addition, each navi got a small sense of the other's fighting abilities.

Rhea did the job quite well, he thought. Seems she's proficient with a sword, too. Bet she'd be up for a swordfight sometime... but for now, rewards. The Navi then moved over to his part of the reward data and glanced at the contents. Some small amount of zenny, and a chip. Ooo, cool, a chip. Let's see what it does... Examination satiated his curiosity, revealing the chip's statistical information. DashAttack, ninety damage, basically a bodyslam attack. Cool, now he could rush enemies without getting his face punched in. He immediately transferred the data to the PET, where Reverus would be waiting.

Then, in a completely unexpected turn of events, the ground beneath his feet turned from shiny metallic... shiny, to white goopy mush. Ew, gross... Eternalis commented as he lifted his feet from the thick mass of white. Actually it did look slightly yellow. Bending down, he took a lump of it and rubbed it between his fingers. It disintegrated into even more pulp. Slightly curious, he began to analyze the composition of the new thing that became their battlefield.

Polysaccharide matter? Consumable? Hm, that gave him an idea. Picking up another goop of white whatever-it-was, he stuck a finger in his mouth to taste. Blegh, it was really bland. Tasteless, in fact. He spat it out with much haste, and began to cleanse his tongue of the vile stuff.

Rhea stared dumbly at the spoils of battle-- a chip data containing a bomb-like apparatus. "Wait, what do you mean by bomb-like, Rhea? It's totally a bomb! ... LilBomb...? Okay, yeah, it's a small bomb," Camillia squinted, eyes still blurry from sleep. "This will prove to be useful in battle," Rhea responded, saving the reward data to deliver it to the PET.

Then she looked down at the gooey stuff sticking onto her boots. "... What is this?" Rhea inquired, kicking at the sludge slightly. "... Um. Says it's mashed potatoes here. Um, it's a sort of edible potato food. A family favourite?" Camillia filled in, wondering if the statement was really helpful to the Navi.

"... It does not look edible to me," Rhea said absently, kneeling down slightly and rolling some of the light-brownish sludge into her cupped hands. The petite rolled it in her hands, compounding it into a spherical shape and petting it, eyes staring innocently at the partner Eternalis, who was actually trying out the sludge.

Making sure she made not a sound, she sent the ball of mashed potatoes flying at the aqua Navi, face still amazingly preserving her poker face.

Eternalis was still in the process of clearing out his taste processes, when he felt something was wrong. Turning towards the sword-wielder, he found himself face-to-face with a ball of mashed potato. Of course, he wasn't paying attention to Camilia's explanation of what it actually was, so he'd just assumed it was a ball of mush. Too late for any assuming, though, as the ball landed smack in his face, exploding in a blast of gross across his face.

His face scrunched up as he realized that he'd just been snowballed by Rhea. That sneak of a- he thought, before interrupting his own line of thought as another crossed his mental path, which made him break into a mischiveous grin. Scraping his foot in front of him, he made sure he was as discreet as possible. Hey, Rhea, he called, making sure to keep his nasty grinning face. Good throw. His foot was gathering up the snow-like material most carefully, hoping he'd not be detected. Then, he cleared off the mush from his face as he assessed the amount he'd gathered. Good enough.

Then, in one fell swoop, he took a step backwards, scooped up the mush, and threw it as his deft fingers formed it into a ball. But I'm better!

"You are welcome," Rhea responded, and only managed to blink when she saw a projectile flying at her face at top speed. She raised her hand in an attempt to block the flying mush, but it passed her palm and her hands stopped mid-action as the mush made direct contact with her forehead. Rhea remained still, hand suspended in front of her in a dumb fashion for a while, before pulling a small smile and standing up. "That was fun."

"NO IT WASN'T!" Camillia screeched, and started on a marathon on what if the meshed potatoes were hot and all the paranoia. Rhea just shrugged, the smug glow of self-appreciation evident on her face.

Unlike Eternalis, however, she didn't bother to wipe the residue of the mush off.

While Rhea and Eternalis enjoyed themselves by making light of an awkward situation, they failed to notice as several viruses stealthily approached them. A colony of Pulsebats silently descended from above while a trio of scattered Brushman viruses wandered in with sad faces - likely lamenting the idea of having to clean up the mess. Two lumps emerged from beneath the chunky landscape, revealing themselves to be a pair of Twin viruses.

Ew, that's gotta be gross, Eternalis thought as he saw Rhea had absolutely no intention of wiping off the potato goop off her face. Her smile, however, made him reciprocate back, returning it as a smile a naughty little kid would have after a nice snowball fight. Then, he looked around the mush, and it seems they weren't alone. Some bats were hovering above the mash, perhaps looking for a new meal, a few broom-like viruses that seemed none too happy, presumably about the mess, and some... short little dudes. With empty faces. Creepy.

Just as he was going to request a direct link back to Reverus, he felt some chip data being sent already, settling into his chip queue not too long afterwards. Was Reverus doing premonition or something? Eternalis mused as he examined the chip data. Shotgun... hm, what could be the use of this... He looked around, there wasn't anything he could pick out. Then, he felt compelled to look up, and there they were: two bats, ready and willing to be target practice. Smirking, he picked the shotgun data and fueled it into his right hand.

The metallic barrel appeared in his hand, feeling cool to the touch of his synthetic skin. However, when he turned up to analyze the bats, he found that the gun alone wouldn't be able to take them out very easily. His mental processes searched for a way to take out the bats. For a while, he couldn't figure out anything, until he looked at Rhea, which gave him an idea. Most Navis have shotguns as their preliminary starting weaponry. Thus, it was highly possible that his partner also had a shotgun in her arsenal. He shouted over to her and asked for her help.

Rhea! If you've got a Shotgun, we're going to blast those bats up there! he said as he pointed his gun upwards in preparation to fire.

The only thing that was wiped from Rhea's face was her smile as she watched the appearance of the virii. "There's two more above you, Rhea-- they might be dangerous since they're on high altitude," Camillia said, stifling a yawn still. "Uh, um, sending you guns."

"... That was what Eternalis suggested," Rhea responded, flexing her fingers as she patted at the imaginary spacing around her arm-- as if she was creating a mould for the data to be poured and materialized into. Swinging it like she would to a sword to clear any remaining particles of irrelevant data (read: meshed potatoes) on her fingers, she let the shotgun barrel-- secured like a cannon on her wrist guards and arm generator-- guide her in aiming for the bats flying high in the sky.

"Understood, Eternalis. Coordinated strike strategy espoused," Rhea called out to her busting partner, signalling her readiness to fire as well.

Eternalis and Rhea blasted at the Pulsebats floating high up in the air with a scatter of Shotguns. Rhea's attack was evaded with the smallest movements considering the sheer distance between them but Eternalis managed to hit one with his. It looked to be a little longer before they joined the fight though. In the meantime, one of the Brushmans (men?) painted a long line of noxious purple, separating Eternalis and Rhea from the virus group while another one cleared away a small holy patch beneath one of the Twins.

Gar, that didn't work out too well, Eternalis thought as he surveyed the results of his assault on the bat viruses. One of them was damaged heavily, the other didn't get a single friggin' scratch on it. Maybe it wasn't the best idea to shoot something that was that high up, considering the range of the firearm that was the Shotgun. He looked around for other developments. The Brushmen seemed to have a weird penchant for terrain: maybe they couldn't attack? In any case, they had Rhea and himself blocked off from the rest by turning some of the panels into a barrier of sickly purple paneling. Probably wouldn't want to step on that anytime soon. He'd also noticed one of them had put a strange glowing yellow panel underneath one of its allies.

If it's doing it to an ally, that must mean the panel is beneficial in some way, the Navi thought. If I can take over that panel, I'd be able to know what it did, but right now... hey, wait. I can already do that.

Opening up his direct PET link, he requested his chips promptly, and got them back in a matter of seconds. Reverus was doing his job pretty well, Eternalis thought. At least if he can't give me any strategy advice I can be a little more independent if something like this happens again. ...Hm, wonder how Harke's doing. Ah well. He turned to Rhea, and began to direct some basic strategy to her and what he was about to do. Rhea, I'm going to try and knock off those twin virus things. If you plan on crossing the purple things, let me know, and I'll redirect my healing process to you. Godspeed, he said, before moving into action.

Activating the first chip, he lifted his right hand as the Crystal Gauntlets did their work, changing their blue color to a soft green, splitting in places into smaller metal plates, rearranging to form a final shape. The newly formed Cannon was anchored to his hand firmly, and he pointed the firearm towards his target, one of the Twin viruses. Calculations began to form in his head, projecting the angle, the speed and the time at which the resulting fired blast would travel at. The mathematics was done within a few moments, and he fired the Cannon, steadying it with his left hand. If it had hit, the force applied to the blast would knock the virus off the glowing panel.

Then, the Gauntlets changed their green color to more of a greyish hue as he began to disappear from view. Slowly becoming more and more transparent, Eternalis phased into the air as a major constituent of the gas itself, water vapour. Jumping up as his last bits of solid matter disappeared, he whizzed through the air effortlessly, onto the glowing panel the Brushman had painted on earlier. Reforming into his original form, Eternalis loaded another chip into his readied weapon process. His grey right gauntlet began to accommodate the new WindRacket by turning into a much larger cannon than before to adapt to the gale wind speeds.

His wind blaster ready, Eternalis pointed the cannon at what was basically point blank range towards the strange-faced twin viruses. The blaster roared to life as the winds fuelled it and the air pressure began to rise exponentially. It wasn't too long before it was ready, and Eternalis fired the air cannon towards his targets.

Rhea quickly dismissed the shotgun with a fling of her arm, quickly looking through the purple, newly painted terrain with pessimism. Ranged weapon were never really her type of weapon, anyway. She would need to identify a way to bypass the edited purple somehow, and--

Then her partner somehow... teleported to the other side.

The LilBomb isn't going to work here-- it'll only harm Eternalis, Rhea's mind raced. "Then just go join him in melee range? Do your charged parry at it," Camillia provided helpfully, which made Rhea blink. Why didn't she think of that... ? "Recommendation accepted. Initiating maneuver." Energy blade charged and loaded in front of her, the petite navi put off a head start with full speed. Upon reaching the purple panels, she rolled and somersaulted through the air to avoid it. At that very moment, her blade seemed to enlarge and became a round, transluscent shield which Rhea had transferred over to her non-dominant arm-- her left.

Camillia reslotted the Sword chip used from the previous battle.

Rhea, well, she was estatic.

"Stay away from me if you do not want to be hurt, Eternalis," the purple navi said as a friendly warning, an ornate longsword generating and strapping itself onto Rhea's wristguards. Immediately liking the weight it possessed, Rhea used the momentum of her charge to bring her up to the nearest, low-lying Pulsebats, almost seeming as if she was intent to settle the score with the virii's comrade. Placing her next step diagonally-- nearly horizontally-- from her original footing, Rhea spun and took the weight of the sword in an attempt to cut the enemy in two.

Eternalis was quick to knock one of the Twins off the holy panel with some help from his Cannon (40). He moved in to finish off the group with one powerful wave of his Windracket and struck both his primary targets with the attack. However, during his teleportation, it seemed that the other Twin had maneuvered onto the holy panel its partner was on and managed to reduce the damage it sustained (50). The first Twin was deleted (200) but quickly regenerated for some unknown reason (+100). The force of the Windracket sent the viruses flying off into the distance and washed away some of the mashed potatoes in the process. A large chunk of the mushy landscape slapped one of the Brushmen in the face, effectively blinding it. It weaved through the battlefield, chaotically flailing its arms and clearing a path of even more holy panels through the potatoes and poison. Meanwhile, the Twin viruses were too busy recovering from the powerful gust to counterattack.

Rhea rushed past the hysteric virus on her way to attack the Pulsebat and tried to clear the remaining poison with a long jump. Her calculations were a bit off and she accidentally took in a whiff of the fumes, causing her to choke a bit (10). The coughing fit subsided with the help from Eternalis's Aegaen Water (+10). She followed through with her plan and finished off the virus with a single swipe (80), parrying away the sonic waves from the other. The survivor quickly flapped out of range as the other two joined the fray. The other Brushmen cleared holy panels beneath themselves, content to watch the fight unfold.